Link: www.visuwords.com

Quick overview: The Visuwords website is a unique twist on a dictionary or thesaurus. Students look up a word and immediately see color coded “pop-up” connections to adjectives,  antonyms, related words, definitions – all at once!  Surprisingly intuitive and easy to use. Works great with classrooms with Interactive Whiteboards.

How can this be used in the classroom: In an individualized classroom, you could leave this website running on your Interactive Whiteboard while your students are working on reading or writing assignments.  If a student is unfamiliar with a word, they can walk over to the board themselves to look up certain words. Roll your mouse (or finger) over any of the “bubbles” to get a more detailed definition of the words. Likewise, this tool could be used with the whole class when discussing new vocabulary. (Source: Candace Hackett Shively, ISTE 2011 Philadelphia)

Link: www.youtube.com/teachers

Quick overview: A version of YouTube designed specifically for education. This can also be a great resource if you’re looking for subject specific videos to help flip your classroom.

What does it do? YouTube for schools contains videos categorized by subject and grade level. Teachers and students can find videos of science experiments, language tutoring, math examples, world events, and so on. In an attempt to minimize distractions for students, YouTube for schools does NOT contain any comments or “side bar” video suggestions. Please keep in mind that if YouTube is currently blocked in your center, this new site does not automatically mean YouTube will be unblocked. We’ll talk about some alternatives for educational video sites in an upcoming blog post.

Video Tutorial: For more information on YouTube for Schools, please click the (1 minute) video link below:

Quick overview: A short video explaining the benefits of using Twitter for your professional development as a teacher.

What is this about? Believe it or not, Twitter can be an invaluable educational tool that can help you easily connect with other educators in order to find new ideas and resources to use in your classroom.

How does it work? Twitter isn’t at all like Facebook. You don’t have to share personal information or spend a lot of time if you don’t want to. In fact, it’s perfectly OK to simply start “following” people or educational organizations you find interesting and see what they have to say from time to time. It’s soft of like tuning in to watch the evening news to see if anything interesting has happened. However, instead you’ll tune-in to “follow” web resources and teaching tips tailored to your classroom needs.

Need help? Are you an FGA teacher looking to sign-up for Twitter and need some pointers where to start? Give us a shout by e-mail. If you’re already on Twitter, we are: a_spector (Avi) alainphaneuf (Alain) and malalande (Marc-André). We so strongly believe in this self-guided approach to PD, that if there’s only one thing we hope you take away from our ICT Blog this school year, it would be to start using Twitter!

Video Tutorial: To explain the pedagogical benefits of using Twitter for PD, my colleague Marc-André Lalande has put together an amazing (5 minute) video called “To Tweet or not to Tweet: (Source: Marc-André Lalande, RECIT FGA Pedagogical Consultant, via r.u.aware blog)

Info: Dragon Dictate for iPhone, iPod, iPad.

Cost: Free.

What does it do? The app will transform spoken speech into text. No training required, just speak and go!

How can it help my students? If you are an ESL (Literacy) teacher, this app could be used to help your students with pronunciation. Students could practice individually by dictating short sentences to the app. If the app repeatedly has trouble recognizing certain words, this can be a cue for the students to ask the teacher for the correct pronunciation. Students could also benefit by seeing grammatical errors “written out” that might otherwise slip by unnoticed when they are speaking. Lastly, this app could be beneficial for students with disabilities that may prevent them from typing on a regular keyboard. Text generated in this app can be e-mailed or copy and pasted into other apps. Definitely worth checking out!

Video Tutorial: For a 2 minute video on how to use Dragon Dictate for the iPad, please click on the video below:

If you like the information you get from the blog, we also share other ideas, links, and pedagogical suggestions from our Twitter accounts. Our Twitter accounts are: a_spector (Avi) alainphaneuf (Alain) and malalande (Marc-André). Believe it or not, Twitter is an amazing resource for professional development. Twitter can connect you with other educators from around the world and provide you with tons of new ideas and resources to use in the classroom. (We’ll be talking more about this after the winter break!)

Alain and I would also like to remind you to submit any great websites or ICT materials that you’ve used successfully in your own classrooms. You can do so by referring to the submit section of this website. If we feature your ICT suggestion, we will be sure to credit you. Thank you and happy holidays from the whole RECIT FGA team!

Photo credit: Photo by Rachel Kramer used under a Creative Commons license

Quick overview: Did you ever come across a school problem, especially in math, that uses a real-life context, but still didn’t make any sense?

What is this about? In this 6-minute video presentation, my colleague Marc-André Lalande presents his thoughts on the subject of “schoolisyzation” and how he thinks technology can help us improve our pedagogical practices. (Source: Marc-André Lalande, RECIT FGA Pedagogical Consultant, via r.u.aware blog)

Feedback: Comments? We really want to hear what you have to say! Please feel free to leave your comments on our blog with the “leave a comment” link below this post. Also, if YouTube is blocked in your school, you can view Marc-André’s original SlideRocket presentation from his r.u.aware blog...

Link: http://www.voki.com/Voki_for_education.php

Quick overview: Do you have students that are uncomfortable with public speaking? Using Voki, a student can create a virtual animated avatar that “speaks” a recording of your student’s own voice or written text. Works in French too.

What does it do? Voki allows students to customize a unique looking virtual person, called an avatar. The avatar could be a representation of the student or a fictional character from a book. To make the Voki speak, students either type in text, speak into a microphone, or call in their recording with a cell phone. The Voki avatar is limited to 1 minute of “speaking” time, which helps students keep things concise. A Voki can be embedded into blogs or sent by e-mail. Free. (Source: Dr. Kipp Rogers, ISTE Philadelphia 2011)

How can this be used in the clasroom? There’s a huge bank of lesson plans for using Voki in an educational context, but one approach I like is using Voki to help students that are uncomfortable speaking in front of the class.

A sample lesson idea: Let’s say your students are assigned a book to read and are asked to provide a viewpoint from the story’s protagonist. If your focus is helping your students develop writing skills, you could ask the students to write their viewpoints for their animated Voki to speak. Once complete, the students’ Vokis are presented to the class using a projector and speakers. Alternatively, if you’re focusing on helping your students develop oral skills, you could ask students to speak and record their viewpoints using a microphone with Voki. The Vokis are then presented to the whole class and “speak” on their behalf. The point of the exercise is to get students sharing their viewpoints (formulating thoughts, mobilizing writing and/or oral competencies) without actually having to be put on the spot in front of the other students.

Something to consider: I highly suggest that you set a short time limit when students create the look of their Voki Avatars. The goal of using Voki in a language classroom should be to get students better at writing or speaking, not creating pretty Avatars!

Video Tutorial: For more information on how to use this Voki, click the (3 minute) video link below:

Info: ComicBook! for the iPhone, iPod, iPad.

Cost: 1.99$

Quick overview: Using the ComicBook app in a literacy (ESL) classroom to help students develop basic writing and communication competencies.

How can the app be used in the classroom? Sharon Meehan teaches a literacy level “Building Foundations” course at ACCESS Riverside in Brossard, Quebec. Using the ComicBook app in conjunction with the iPad’s built-in camera, Sharon’s students took pictures of each other to create a simple comic. Students used the iPads to insert written captions to simulate real life situations, such as ordering at a restaurant. At the end of the exercise, the iPads were  connected to a digital projector so students could collaboratively edit grammar and spelling, or rearrange the placement of the written captions.

What advantages did the mobile technology bring to the classroom? The app’s easy to navigate interface (symbols and pictograms) helped students focus on the activity, rather than getting bogged down by a complicated computer interface. It was surprisingly easy for the students to create the comics, even if they didn’t have a strong grasp of the English language. The limited length of written “comic bubble” style captions also ensured that the students wrote short, concise interactions. 

Interested? The activity was closely linked to the prescribed elements of Sharon’s ENG-B122-4 course and it mainly focused on developing writing competencies. Would you like to do a similar activity in your Literacy or French second language classroom? We have enough iPads to accommodate your class and we are booking now for January 2012 and beyond. Contact us to discuss how we can adapt this activity for your classroom!

Video: To see a 2 minute in-class video demonstrating how Sharon’s students used the app in the classroom, click the play button below:

Links: www.jamstudio.com and www.incompetech.com

Quick overview: Websites that either allow students to create or download copyright free music for use in multimedia projects.

JamStudio: JamStudio.com allows students to cook up their own musical compositions to use in projects, even if your students aren’t musically inclined. It’s similar in concept to Apple’s Garage Band but everything is done through a web browser instead. A free educational account is required before using it with your students. (Source: Tammy Worcester, ISTE Philadelphia 2011)

Incompetech: If your students are simply looking for “ready to use” royalty-free music then send them to the Incompetech website. They can search for music by feel (moody, happy, dramatic, etc) or by genre. Listen and download the music for free, no fuss, no muss.. no catch! This is a great resource for iMovie, Movie Maker, or other ICT projects. Here is an example of an upbeat silent film piano score or a dramatic film score found on the site. For more information on copyright usage, see the FAQ section. (Source: Robert Miller, ISTE Philadelphia 2011)

Update November 22nd, 2011: I’ve received two additional (totally amazing!) royalty-free music sites from our readers Chris and Dano. Be sure to check out MusicRevolution and DanoSongs if you’re looking for some high quality tracks.

Some considerations: As I’ve mentioned in other posts, students can easily get caught up in creating the bells and whistles (i.e. – music) for a project when the main focus may be about developing language or other competencies. Try to remember to keep them on track. Last but not least, don’t worry about being an expert with either tool. There’s a good chance your tech savvy students will figure out how to insert the music into their projects on their own.

Video Tutorial: For more information on how to use these resources, click the video (3 minutes) link below:

Info: The Solar System for iPad only.

Cost: 13.99$

What does it do? Are you teaching your students about the solar system? If so, this app presents your students with easy-to-read information about the planets and celestial bodies in our solar system, accompanied by interactive “touchable” 3D models based on real life NASA imagery. All the information is presented in a non-linear fashion and could be a beneficial approach for students who enjoy learning at their own pace. Last but not least, the intuitive interface is similar to The Elements app we reviewed in another blog post. Check out the video below if you’d like a quick demo of how it works!

Video Tutorial: For a video (3 minutes) overview of The Solar System app, click the play button below: